538 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The teaching of Anselm of Laon and his brother Ralph drew students from as far south as Milan and from Bremen in the North. The brothers were called by John of Salisbury the " splendid luminaries of Gaul," l and " doctor of doctors " was an accepted appellation of Anselm. This teacher, d. 1117, perhaps the pupil of Anselm of Bee, had Abselard among his hearers and won his contumely. But John of Salisbury's praise, and not Aba3lard's contempt, must deter mine our judgment of the man. His glossa interlinearis, a periphrastic commentary on the Vulgate, was held in high esteem for several centuries.2
Bernard of Chartres, about 1140, was celebrated by John of Salisbury as the " most overflowing spring of letters in Gaul in recent times " and " the most perfect Platonist of our age." 3 He acknowledged his indebtedness to the ancient writers in these words, " We are as dwarfs mounted on the shoulders of giants, so that we are able to see more and further than they; but this is not on account of any keen ness of sight on our part or height of our bodies, but because we are lifted up upon those giant forms. Our age enjoys the gifts of preceding ages, and we know more, not because we excel in talent, but because we use the products of others who have gone before." 4
William of Conches, d. 1152 (?), got his name from the Norman hamlet in which he was born. Like his teacher, Bernard of Chartres, he laid stress upon a thorough acquaint ance with grammar as the foundation of all learning, and John of Salisbury seems to have written the Metalogicus to vindicate the claims his teachers made for the fundamental importance of this study as opposed to dialectics. But he was advocating a losing cause. Scholasticism was crushing out the fresh sprouts of humanism.5 William of Conches
1 Splendidissima lumina Galliarum. Metal., Migne, 199. 832.
2 He also wrote allegorical notes on the Canticles, Matthew, and Revelation. Migne, vol. 162.
8 Metal, Migne, 199. 854.
4 Metal, III. 4 ; Migne, 199. 900.
5 See Rashdall, I. 67.
§ 88. SCHOOLS. 539
took liberties with received opinions and denied that Eve was literally created from Adam's rib. The root of his teachings Poole finds in William's own words, " through knowledge of the creature we attain to the knowledge of the Creator." 1
The studies continued, at least theoretically, to follow the scheme of the old trivium, including grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; and the quadrivium, including arithmetic, geom etry, astronomy, and music. These branches had a wider scope than we associate with some of the titles. Grammar, for example, with Bernard of Chartres, included much more than technical rules and the fundamental distinctions of words. It took in the tropes and figures of speech, analyzed the author's body of thought, and brought out the allusions to nature, science, and ethical questions. The teaching ex tended far beyond the teaching of the Capitularies of Charle magne. Nevertheless, all these studies were the vestibule of theology and valuable only as an introduction to it. Jacob of Vitry, d. 1244, comparing the seven liberal arts with theology,2 said, " Logic is good for it teaches us to distinguish truth from falsehood, grammar is good for it teaches how to speak and write correctly ; rhetoric is good for it teaches how to speak elegantly and to persuade. Good too are geom etry which teaches us how to measure the earth, arithmetic or the art of computing which enables us to estimate the brevity of our days, music which reminds us of the sweet chant of the blessed, astronomy which leads us to consider the heavenly bodies shining resplendently before God. But far better is theology which alone can be called a liberal art, since it alone delivers the human soul from its woes."
Innocent III., through the canons of the Fourth Lateran, ordered all cathedrals to have teachers of grammar and lectors in theology, and offered the rewards of high office only to those who pursued hard study with the sweat of the brow.3 He had in mind only candidates of theology.
1 See Poole's art. in Herzog, 2d ed., XVIII. 132 sqq.
2 Quoted by CompayrS, p. 200.
3 Qui diutius sudavit in scholis et laudabiliter proferit in eis. Hurter, III. 244.